6.6. Checking Package Authenticity
Security is very important for Falcot Corp administrators. Accordingly, they need to ensure that they only install packages which are guaranteed to come from Debian with no tampering on the way. A computer cracker could try to add malicious code to an otherwise legitimate package. Such a package, if installed, could do anything the cracker designed it to do, including for instance disclosing passwords or confidential information. To circumvent this risk, Debian provides a tamper-proof seal to guarantee — at install time — that a package really comes from its official maintainer and hasn't been modified by a third party.
The seal works with a chain of cryptographical hashes and a signature and is explained in detail in apt-secure(8). Starting with Debian 10 Buster the signed file is the InRelease file, provided by the Debian mirrors. There is also a legacy file called Release. Both contain a list of the Packages files (including their compressed forms, Packages.gz and Packages.xz, and the incremental versions), along with their SHA256 hashes, which ensures that the files haven't been tampered with. These Packages files contain a list of the Debian packages available on the mirror, along with their hashes, which ensures in turn that the contents of the packages themselves haven't been altered either. The difference between InRelease and Release is that the former is cryptographically signed in-line, whereas the latter provides a detached signature in the form of the file Release.gpg.
APT needs a set of trusted GnuPG public keys to verify signatures in the InRelease and Release.gpg files available on the mirrors. It gets them from files in /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/ and from the /etc/apt/trusted.gpg keyring (managed by the apt-key command). The official Debian keys are provided and kept up-to-date by the debian-archive-keyring package which puts them in /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/. Note, however, that the first installation of this particular package requires caution: even if the package is signed like any other, the signature cannot be verified externally. Cautious administrators should therefore check the fingerprints of imported keys before trusting them to install new packages:
# apt-key fingerprint
/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-archive-buster-automatic.gpg
----------------------------------------------------------
pub rsa4096 2019-04-14 [SC] [expires: 2027-04-12]
80D1 5823 B7FD 1561 F9F7 BCDD DC30 D7C2 3CBB ABEE
uid [ unknown] Debian Archive Automatic Signing Key (10/buster) <ftpmaster@debian.org>
sub rsa4096 2019-04-14 [S] [expires: 2027-04-12]
/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-archive-buster-security-automatic.gpg
-------------------------------------------------------------------
pub rsa4096 2019-04-14 [SC] [expires: 2027-04-12]
5E61 B217 265D A980 7A23 C5FF 4DFA B270 CAA9 6DFA
uid [ unknown] Debian Security Archive Automatic Signing Key (10/buster) <ftpmaster@debian.org>
sub rsa4096 2019-04-14 [S] [expires: 2027-04-12]
/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-archive-buster-stable.gpg
-------------------------------------------------------
pub rsa4096 2019-02-05 [SC] [expires: 2027-02-03]
6D33 866E DD8F FA41 C014 3AED DCC9 EFBF 77E1 1517
uid [ unknown] Debian Stable Release Key (10/buster) <debian-release@lists.debian.org>
/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-archive-jessie-automatic.gpg
----------------------------------------------------------
pub rsa4096 2014-11-21 [SC] [expires: 2022-11-19]
126C 0D24 BD8A 2942 CC7D F8AC 7638 D044 2B90 D010
uid [ unknown] Debian Archive Automatic Signing Key (8/jessie) <ftpmaster@debian.org>
/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-archive-jessie-security-automatic.gpg
-------------------------------------------------------------------
pub rsa4096 2014-11-21 [SC] [expires: 2022-11-19]
D211 6914 1CEC D440 F2EB 8DDA 9D6D 8F6B C857 C906
uid [ unknown] Debian Security Archive Automatic Signing Key (8/jessie) <ftpmaster@debian.org>
/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-archive-jessie-stable.gpg
-------------------------------------------------------
pub rsa4096 2013-08-17 [SC] [expires: 2021-08-15]
75DD C3C4 A499 F1A1 8CB5 F3C8 CBF8 D6FD 518E 17E1
uid [ unknown] Jessie Stable Release Key <debian-release@lists.debian.org>
/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-archive-stretch-automatic.gpg
-----------------------------------------------------------
pub rsa4096 2017-05-22 [SC] [expires: 2025-05-20]
E1CF 20DD FFE4 B89E 8026 58F1 E0B1 1894 F66A EC98
uid [ unknown] Debian Archive Automatic Signing Key (9/stretch) <ftpmaster@debian.org>
sub rsa4096 2017-05-22 [S] [expires: 2025-05-20]
/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-archive-stretch-security-automatic.gpg
--------------------------------------------------------------------
pub rsa4096 2017-05-22 [SC] [expires: 2025-05-20]
6ED6 F5CB 5FA6 FB2F 460A E88E EDA0 D238 8AE2 2BA9
uid [ unknown] Debian Security Archive Automatic Signing Key (9/stretch) <ftpmaster@debian.org>
sub rsa4096 2017-05-22 [S] [expires: 2025-05-20]
/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debian-archive-stretch-stable.gpg
--------------------------------------------------------
pub rsa4096 2017-05-20 [SC] [expires: 2025-05-18]
067E 3C45 6BAE 240A CEE8 8F6F EF0F 382A 1A7B 6500
uid [ unknown] Debian Stable Release Key (9/stretch) <debian-release@lists.debian.org>
Once the appropriate keys are in the keyring, APT will check the signatures before any risky operation, so that front-ends will display a warning if asked to install a package whose authenticity can't be ascertained.
